


Worlds Apart

by FeugoFox42



Category: RWBY
Genre: Fluff, Gen, No Powers but Faunus, Nonsensical Story, Not Canon Compliant, not in the slightest, real world AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-07 17:04:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19855843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeugoFox42/pseuds/FeugoFox42
Summary: Two friends, separated by thousands of miles and countless villages. Like that's going to stop them.





	Worlds Apart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JustClem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustClem/gifts).



> For being my shoulder

Weiss’ life was not what most people would call “Normal”.

In truth, whilst it would be inaccurate to say that ‘“A Normal Life” was probably the furthest you could describe it’, the sheer number of and the scope of those differences in her day compared to the day of someone like you or me are what made it abnormal.

Weiss woke up every morning, as we all have done. But rather than having something as quote, unquote “primitive” like an alarm clock to rouse her from her slumber (her father’s word for it, not her own), her family had servants come into their rooms in the morning to wake them up every day. 

Honestly, it baffled her that her father, in his grand pool of wisdom, decided that such technology invented to wake people up should be cast aside to instead hire servants to so the exact same job.

Had she no want or desire to take over the family company when she was older, she would outright call him out on his stupidity and dismissal of such technology, and ask him simply, “What do your servants use to wake themselves up to make sure they are ready to wake _you_ up?” She never used the servants - a handful of people could wake her and not get fired on the spot for doing so, and none of the staff were on that list.

Well, there was one: Klein.

Well, there were two: Klein, and the Cake Butler. He was her favourite (excluding Klein, of course. But cake at 7 in the morning is not exactly the best thing to wake up to (except on her birthday.))

Weiss ate breakfast, as most people do. But rather than an intimate dining table seating four, maybe six, or a kitchen island with stalls, served in a bowl or on a simple plate for larger quantities of food, Weiss’ breakfast came prepared by chefs and cooks up for hours before even the Wake Up Servants had woken, served on platters that might as well have had the words “WEALTH” etched in pure gold onto each visible surface, and prepared in a manner that not even a crumb was would be out of place until Weiss began eating it. All of this, seated at a table meant for hosting grand scale banquets for upwards of 100 people, and Weiss sitting three chairs down from the head closest to the door she’d just walked through. 

There was no intimacy at this table. There was only a statement of status, and a cold, empty atmosphere of loneliness.

School. Now that was a completely different story. 

Beacon Academy gave Weiss a chance to grow more than she ever really did at home. 

There was someone waking her up on a daily basis, sure, but that was because it was her dorm captain, Ruby Rose. Ruby learned quickly though that her original method of waking Weiss left her with a large bump on her head. She remembered cursing _Who even owns a whistle for that sort of thing anyway?_ to herself as the young prodigy nursed her swollen lump and the rich girl returned to The Land of Zzz’s. 

There was a large table in an equally large room for over 100 people to eat at. Multiple tables, even. But at least it was justified, with 4 years worth of students taking residence on the Academy’s grounds, each needing food on a daily basis. The quality of the food was… different, from the food that was so expertly prepared for her at home. But over time, the meal times at Beacon became just as enjoyable as the company she kept.

Weiss had friends here - RWBY Dorm being the main one. An old tradition at Beacon Academy was to name the dorm after an acronym of those living in it for their time at the school. Ruby, herself, Blake Belladonna, and Ruby’s older half-sister, Yang Xiao Long, made up RWBY Dorm. And because it was her dorm, and she didn’t really have a choice in the matter whether she would be friends with them, they were stuck together for their four years here.

The two sisters introduced Weiss to so much that, whilst she was not prohibited from exploring on her own, she _was_ greatly restricted from using back with her father.

Case and point: Messenger and Forum apps on her Scroll.

She had no real need to use them before - everyone her father deemed her to need was less than a raised voice away at any given time. Now, Remnant was her oyster...

[@ali_stare] Fox A. **  
****_yeah i’ve heard this hundreds of times already. why are you telling me this again?_**

...and that’s honestly how she and another kid from Shade Academy, Fox, got talking. 

Weiss S. [@weissschnee]  
**_Because you are my friend, and friends are supposed to listen to each other._**

[@ali_stare] Fox A. **** **  
****_huh? wazzat?_**

Weiss S. [@weissschnee] **  
****_You boob. >;9_**

**_No, I meant .:)_ **

**_Verdammte Technik!_ **

[@ali_stare] Fox A. **** **  
****_i could watch this all day :)_**

**_hey look i got it 1st try_ **

Weiss S. [@weissschnee] ** _  
_****_> :(_**

**_Got it!_ **

**_Also, I hate you._ **

[@ali_stare] Fox A. **** **  
****_no you don't_**

Weiss S. [@weissschnee] **  
****_No, I don’t. :)_**

Fate seemed to be an appropriate thing to thank for the scenario she found herself in. Weiss was originally at Beacon for the Business Course, at the behest of her father (surprising no one), but within the first month she had dropped the course to focus on her true callings; the arts.

Singing lessons in her youth transferred over into time with the choir of a spare evening. Her eye for detail meant that she could pick up on the smallest of things, such as the freckles on the cheek of someone’s oil painting in her new Art Course. And her imagination not only helped with her Art, but in her spare time, she let her imagination spill onto paper in the form of words, rather than scratches of graphite or strokes of paint.

Her writing let her express herself in more explicit ways than painting did, in the sense that a picture can be interpreted a thousand different ways by different people, but words were a little more concrete. 

She was _not_ referring to the R-Rated definition of explicit.

Don’t lie, that’s what you thought of.

Writing let her express her feelings in poetry, in prose. She could see a picture from one of her classmates of a green field with a sunflower standing in the middle with a rain cloud over its head, and suddenly she’s thinking of a piece where her dorm mates Yang and Blake are fighting for each other in the battle for their lives. It’s harder to expand words into a picture that captures all it could, but to take a picture and give it a backstory, a reason for existing, a world that ultimately centres around said picture, and that… that was why she loved doing it.

She remembered exactly how it all started; Fox liked a short story of hers she’d uploaded onto the CTT, and left a message saying so.

[@ali_stare] _{hidden}_ ** _  
_****_i’m confused_**

Well, at least she _hoped_ he liked it with a comment like that.

 _{hidden}_ [@sootblacksoot] **  
****_Thanks?_**

He did like it, as their many interactions lead her to discover.

Fox was also a writer, though he liked making things difficult for himself somewhat unnecessarily. Weiss wrote to the masses, Fox wrote for the niche crowds. Well, in truth, Fox wrote for himself, but the subject matter appealed only to a niche portion of the wider community they happened to be a part of. 

They talked for a while about the plot of the story she was writing, discussing previous plot points he found interesting, until they branched off. Neither knew exactly when, but they ended up just talking.

 _{hidden}_ [@sootblacksoot] **  
****_It’s just a dream though. As in, I don’t THINK it would happen, but it COULD and I wouldn’t complain. Look, Alistare, I know you mean well, but it’s so out of my way. Mistral is such a large Kingdom._**

[@ali_stare] _{hidden}_ ** _  
_****_ok i’m going to be blunt here, my name is Fox._**

**\---[@ali_stare] changed their settings---**

[@ali_stare] Fox A. ** _  
_****_we’re friends now right?_**

 _{hidden}_ [@sootblacksoot] **  
****_I would say so, yes._**

[@ali_stare] Fox A. ** _  
_****_i trust you_**

**_u would have hired someone to come and kidnap me from halfway across the planet to try and prove me wrong by nw_ **

_{hidden}_ [@sootblacksoot]  
**_That is grossly exaggerating events._**

**_I would personally travel across the world to definitively prove you wrong!_ **

[@ali_stare] Fox A. ** _  
_****_Pfft!_**

Although nothing more was said on the matter that day, a seed had been planted.

The pair talked what seemed like every day.

They grew close, despite never having been in the same Kingdom, even for a moment. Weiss eventually divulged her true name instead of hiding behind her pseudonym. But Fox had to ask,

[@ali_stare]Fox A. ** _  
_****_y sootblacksoot??_**

Weiss S. [@weissschnee] **  
****_I’m unsure how familiar you are with the Atlesian language, so I’ll assume you have no experience._**

**_My name in my language translates to “Snow White”, or “White Snow”, whichever way you want to read it._ **

**_So I thought, why not keep to that theme? Opposite of white is black, and soot is like snow, but dark and dirty._ **

**_Hence; sootblacksoot._ **

[@ali_stare] Fox A. ** _  
_****_sno white?_**

**_i knew u were a princess_ **

Weiss S. [@weissschnee] **  
****_THAT’S what you’re taking from this?_**

[@ali_stare] Fox A. ** _  
_****_:P_**

Any opportunity one got to check if the other had sent them a message, they would take it. If one had messaged, then the other would respond. If they hadn’t, they’d wait. But the waiting never felt too long.

Until…

Weiss S. [@weissschnee] **  
****_I…_**

**_What do you mean you can’t message me?_ **

[@ali_stare] Fox A. ** _  
_****_look weiss its not that big of ad eal_**

Weiss S. [@weissschnee] **  
****_Excuse you?!_**

**_We have talked, on and off, for nearly four years._ **

**_Yes, we've done things, but we always came back to it in the end._ **

**_And here you are, outright saying you can't message me anymore?!_ **

[@ali_stare] Fox A. ** _  
_****_can i explain?_**

Weiss S. [@weissschnee] **  
****_No!_**

**_That would be messaging me, and you can’t do that! Remember?_**

**_So, kindly don't!_ **

**\---[@weissschnee] is now offline---**

“Shit…” Fox muttered aloud.

“Trouble in paradise?” Fox’s friend, Coco, asked from the driver’s seat.

“For the last time Coco, w-”

“I know, I know,” she defused, rolling her eyes underneath her designer sunglasses. “Geez, it’s like you forget every time you have told either me or Velv or Yatsu not to say that because you’re not dating her.”

“Because I’m _not._ We are friends, all we want to be _is_ friends. Friends fall out too.”

“Yeah? Well, you better hope you fall back in,” Coco half-teased as she pulled up to their destination, “because it is going to be costly if she takes that to heart.”

“Why would I take this to heart?”

“Because Weiss,” Yang offered, her head resting on her girlfriend’s, chin placed square in the middle of her Faunus ears, “this is big. It’s like if me and Blake had a big argument. We know it’s happened before, and we know we’ll work through it in the end.”

“But this is the first fight you two have had,” Blake finished. “But it wasn’t over anything big, right?”

“Not… not really,” Weiss admitted, hugging her arm as she often did when she got nervous or apprehensive. “He said he couldn’t talk to me.”

“What about?” came Yang’s question, a hint of worry in her voice left over from all the time she had brought Ruby in the past essentially by herself.

“That’s the thing, I didn’t give him a chance to say. I just… logged off. I haven’t been on since.”

Blake rose from her position to sit next to Weiss and comfort her, Yang flanking the snowy girl to do the same. “It’s going to be tough. You two have been talking for years now, you’re as good of a friend to him as you are to us. I’m sure there has to be a reason for this.”

“Speaking of reasons,” Yang segued, “Rubes better have a good one for being this late - Summertime started, like, three hours ago. We’re on the clock, Rubes!” she raised her voice that last part as if Ruby was just nearby to hear the command.

As luck would have it, no sooner had Yang said those words, two strained knocks came from their door.

“Hey guys,” Ruby said, effort in her voice as if carrying something, “can someone come open the door for me please? I can’t carry everything I have _and_ work the key. Not without ruining what I have.”

"Not it!" the Bumbleby duo called in perfect unison, raising their hands to lock in their decision.

“I’ll go,” Weiss tutted with a smile.

Ruby was something special; she had a knack for befriending people, and a calm and caring nature that shone at times even she sometimes wasn’t expecting. Honestly, it was that nature that first started to chip away at the icy exterior Weiss had accumulated in her youth and teenage years.

But being brought forward two years not only showed you off as a prodigy, but also highlighted the fact that you were still two years younger than your peers in the same year. 

And that often meant being a klutz for the simplest of things. Case in point…

“Honestly Ruby, why you could have asked one of us to come… along w…”

The first week of Summer was always odd for Weiss. There was that brief moment where nothing was solidified with anyone. She may be called back home, a call she constantly hates telling her roommates that she has to oblige, but there was no guarantee of that call happening until it does. And time with the rest of the dorm, as much as that would happen, was always limited to the third or fourth week onwards of their break, as it gave them time to be away from each other too. 

Not that they hated each other - they don’t - but imagine living in the same small space with the same people every day for seven months at a time. You’d want a bit of a break from that all.

What she did not expect, however, was to have brought along a friend, standing at the door with a prominent blush on his face.

"Ruby, who is this?"

“Hey Sooty.”

And that just confirmed to Weiss who this was.

“Fox?!” 

Without thinking, she ran in for a hug.

This was it; they’d spoken about it for ages, but they’re finally meeting each other for the first time. And the first thing that comes to Weiss’ mind when she thought about it? 

**_*SLAP!*_ **

It was not a hug...

Everyone (save for Weiss, obviously) reacted with shock and surprise at the action. “Ow! What the hell, Weiss?”

“I thought I wasn’t going to speak to you again!”

“Yeah,” he shrugged embarrassingly, “I worded that poorly."

"You think?!" 

"But, I’m here now.”

“Which begs the question; _how_ are you here? This is an entire Kingdom away from where you live!” Ice blue eyes shifted to look at Ruby, looking proud as punch with herself off to one side. “I take it you have something to do with this?”

Ruby grinned a toothy grin. “He wasn’t going to make it here on his own,” she pointed out.

“And,” Blake added, “Ruby was the most likely one to talk, so Yang and I elected to stay here to keep you company and keep you inside whilst she went to grab Fox.”

“Win-Win for us,” the blonde cheered.

“You were _all_ involved with arranging this?”

“I wanted it to be special,” Fox told Weiss as she turned around. “I got all three of them in on a chat to organise this whole thing without you knowing. If the rest of your dorm knew I was arriving, then the only one left to surprise would be you. Besides, this is somewhere controlled, somewhere away from your parents where they can't sneer at me for being me, or at you for being you. It's somewhere safe, and somewhere where a body could very easily be disposed of should I not be deemed worthy of your dormmates’ trust and intentions.”

"Nothing wrong with you so far," Blake teased.

“And you’re here now…” Weiss parroted, reality sinking in.

“Yeah. I’m here.”

The pair just hugged it out. They’d used words a lot recently, and that didn’t end too pleasantly. 

Now, even from starting worlds apart, just the act of hugging was more than enough to let the other know that meant everything they had said.

It’s a pity Fox was so tall though; the hug was very one sided... so long as he didn't comment on it, she could live wi-

"You're so small in real life."

"I will stand on the nearest stool and fucking _strangle_ you!" she spat back with venom: their friendship be damned!

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday Clem! I know it's SEVEN days early (see why I asked about the number now? ;) ), but you deserve this early. Consider this my gift to you - because otherwise, you'd be getting socks. Thick woolly ones that make your feet sweat; terrible for warm climates :P


End file.
